Hey Jess! Congrats on being about a week out from release! I'm playing the first 3 chapters since they went up on the forum as a preview and I'm still just so in love with this game! You polished it so well between all the edits and I can't wait till I get to play through the whole story!!! Also v excited for the next patreon BIP~ just wanted to drop in and say again congrats and also omg I did not realize the game went over 1 million words! You're amazing and FOA is amazing and I'm so glad I got to see how it's evolved these last several years :3 thanks for sharing your story with us =D
Oh, thank you! I hadn't even seen that post go up in the forum thread, so that was fun to discover.
(Psst, everyone, you can play the first three chapters of the full game right now for free!)
But seriously, thank you. I may or may not be a huge nervous wreck right now as release day approaches, but yes. Final word count was actually something like 1.3 million? And that's after I took out a lot of messy, bulky code from the first draft, so I'm pretty proud of it. I'm sure there are still redundancies and things contributing to that number, but that's how being a code scrub is sometimes.
I really hope everyone enjoys the final result. :)
Hello again! I've come bearing a potential bug? In the screenshot below, I did practice magic with Merlin during the free time hub so I was wondering if this is still the text I should get or not? BTW just wanna say I love them and literally every interaction I've had with them and I cant wait until the end of chapter two XD have a great one!
Oh god, no, not a bug in the Free Time Hub 😱 -- oh wait, it's a pretty simple fix, I just forgot to increment FT_merlin_train after training.
But, yes, you should be getting entirely different text there if you already had a magic training session with Merlin (including an extra boost to the magic stat).
I pushed out a hotfix to the Free Time Hub file for all versions of the game hosted on my site (Alpha, Closed Beta, Public Beta) today. The itch.io version is on its own until its next formal update.
Hello! I fell off social media for a small forever but I'm here to reiterate once again how much I love this game! I made it into the beta and it's fantastic~ I'm sure the rest of my feedback will make it to you through the official channels but just wanted to drop in to say directly how much I love and appreciate this story, these characters, and the perspective I'm gaining as I play. About to start my second play through and can't wait to find avenues I haven't yet explored :3
Hope you're doing well btw!
Hi anywaffle! My apologies for the late response as well. I'm well and hope you are, too.
I appreciate your sticking with the game's development! Your beta feedback was helpful, especially your insight on the MC's relationships.
The game is finished for release later this week (Final Demo + Author Interview). Beyond this story, I'll also carry what I learned into future projects. Thank you for being one of the voices guiding my growth!
Hello there! Just wanted to drop in and say I really love aab~ stumbled across the dashingdon demo during a lull at work today and it was a great read. Some of those scenes made me cry in a way that was weirdly satisfying? I don't quite know how to explain it but it's fantastic either way! Wishing you the best :3
oh thank you! sorry for making you cry, but that’s also extremely validating lol.
glad you’re enjoying it, and hope you’re doing well!
Hi! I just wanted to drop in and let you know how much I'm loving your game! I only just finished the first chapter and I'm already so attached to all these characters! I legit spent that whole last bit of the chapter crying I was so worried for these precious children. I'm also!!! AMAZED!!! At the length and the world building and I can't wait to finish up the demo! I hope that things with your health improve and the rest of the year is kind to you! Thanks for sharing your work with us :3
Aww thank you so much! I’m glad that you’re enjoying the game!! Thank you for the well wishes! This year is sure is,, existing, haha! But I think it’s rough for everyone. :> I hope it goes well for you, too!
Thoughts on the soul king? Cause I'm still trying to figure his shit out tbh
So, I think the idea of him is really cool.
The premise of the shinigami building their society atop the bones of the previous Quincy rule is so interesting.
The sternritter living in the shadow of the Seireitei is fitting and if they’d focused more on the previous war between the Quincy and Shinigami and less on the 1 v 1s I think the soul king could have paid off.
This is an almost dead husk of a god with his body parts strewn around the Soul Society and beyond, lording over a society of beings that fucking hate him and the kind he produced. To the point that Quincy are killed on sight with the singular exception of Uryu (but like....barely). But they can’t get rid of him.
The shinigami NEED him and are unwilling to sacrifice any of their own to replace him. Not just that, but until Ichigo, they don’t think it’s possible to.
I think the soul king has very interesting potential. History revisionism and genocide are the large implications his existance holds.
And it’s disappointing we didn’t find out more of the past war. Mostly because the shinigami coming out on top feels so hollow (hehe) when we don’t even know why it’s such a victory.
Like the fate of the worlds stake is eh. Tell me what kind of world Yamamoto and Unohana razed and buried. Tell me why the stakes are so high that he not be reassembled.
I just think it’s so funny they claim Quincy are a scourge that destroy the balance of the worlds but like.....their forefather is what’s keeping the SS from eating shit.
A commission fic for the lovely @anywaffle, who requested a little fluff for Iron Bull and Inquisitor Lavellan.
Oh, That’s Amore
“Horns up!”
The roar of the Chargers’ celebration after a good fight echoed across the Herald’s Rest, heads tipping back to down the contents of whatever they were drinking that moment under the benevolent eye of their glorious leader. Iron Bull chuckled as his men, his band, his friends, fell to bantering over the fight they had just come from, the victory they had won in the name of the Inquisition and Inquisitor Lavellan herself. It was impossible not to feel proud of them, even after everything he had given up to keep them living.
A part of him knew he should have resented them for his own attachment that had made that decision on the Storm Coast impossible for him to make, but Olive had been right - in all but name, he had been Tal Vashoth for a long time now. But he was not a Grey One, not an outcast incapable of controlling his baser urges. He was the Iron Bull, and never did he feel more proud of the name he had chosen for himself than when a certain diminutive elf called him by it.
Speaking of that elf ... His head turned with unerring focus at a familiar dip in volume across the tavern, knowing even before his eye found her that Olive had entered. The residents of Skyhold were so in love with their little Inquisitor that she was always preceded by a brief moment of hush, a sign of the respect and awe they held her in given for just a heartbeat before they resumed their business, knowing her well enough now not to linger in those moments. But no one knew her like he did.
No one else had seemed to notice her tension and discomfort in those early days in Haven, but the Iron Bull had. No one else had noticed the nightly tears and banked terror in her eyes, but the Iron Bull had. He could still remember the look on Krem’s face when he had requested one of his second’s hand-made nugs, refusing to offer up why he had asked. He was still pretty sure Olive only suspected that the soft little thing had found its way into her cabin by his hand, though she had never called him on it. He knew exactly where it was now - on her pillow, high in her tower, one wing rubbed smooth from all those tears shed in silent anxiety over the position she had found herself in entirely by accident. She loved that nug, he was sure of it. Just thinking of it, set in a place of such honor, was enough to make him smile.
And that smile was met by hers, even across a crowded taproom, the dewy sweetness of her eyes softening above a grin that belonged entirely to him, displayed openly for all to see. There was no hiding her affections; there never had been. No one was in any doubt that Inquisitor Lavellan was definitely saving her kisses for the Iron Bull.
As he watched, she broke away from Varric and Sera, all but skipping across the taproom to plant herself in his lap with a wide grin. He couldn’t help himself - he chuckled fondly at her exuberant display of unconscious affection, inwardly delighted that she always chose to sit here, with him, no matter who she had entered with.
“Well, hello, boss,” he greeted her, grunting a little as she squirmed on his lap, pulling something from her pocket as she did so. “What’s got you so sparkly tonight, hmm?”
Olive’s grin never wavered as she met his gaze.
“I made you something,” she informed him, setting a little pot into his large palm.
Curious, he raised a brow, uncurling his palm from her waist to reach around her and open the container. What he found there was something he had not come across in these lands anywhere but in the hands of some extortionate merchants.
“Horn balm?”
Olive nodded happily.
“You said you had trouble finding it, and all the merchants who have it charge ridiculous prices for it, so I wrote to my cousin in Wycombe - he knows a couple of Qunari - and he asked them for the recipe, and he sent it to me!” she said, the words coming out in an unaccustomed rush, displaying the barest of lisps that she usually worked so hard to conceal.
That she was excited enough to forego her usual careful speech spoke more than volumes to him; it wrote an entire series of compendiums on warmth and affection and caring that might otherwise have passed him by, were it not for her. Touched, he raised the pot to his nose, sniffing delicately, and there were the old familiar scents - of beeswax and coconut, the soft green scent that clung to his lover’s hair, the barest tang of the leather mortar used to mix it all together. It was something she would not normally turn her hand to, preferring to knit and crochet, to make soft things that could be used or treasured by those she gifted them to. That she had gone so far out of her way to make this for him was ...
“Bull?”
“Mmm?” He lifted his head, his eyes finding her slightly worried gaze barely inches from his own.
“Does it smell bad?” she asked, and though likely no other would notice it, he saw the tension ripple through her frame at the thought that her gift might not be as good as she had hoped it would be.
He smiled, curling his palm to her waist once again, hugging her into his chest to breathe in the scent of her wild silver hair.
“Best gift anyone’s given me, kadan,” he assured her, feeling that tension ease out of her frame as she cuddled into him affectionately.
It wasn’t until later, when she was cajoled from his lap to dance with Krem in an ill-fated attempt to get the bard’s attention, that he suddenly realized what he had said. Kadan. A word filled with so much meaning, yet a word he had never before given to another. A strange tightness gripped his heart as he followed her movements, admiring her lithe form, her bright smile, the warmth that radiated from her whenever she was surrounded by those she called friend and family.
“Ah ...”
He chuckled to himself, his fingers curling around the little pot of horn balm still held in his palm, wondering how it had taken him so long to put a name to what he felt when his little Lavellan was anywhere near his thoughts.
I have to spray for fleas and bathe my dogs next week. Usually, I would do it alone but I'm gonna try to get my dad to help me. And by try, I mean wake him up early and make him get up to help me.
